Children’s Literature

Red Pyramid

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I finally got to read Red Pyramid. I didn’t reserve it at the library because Liz owned it in hardback and promised me that I could read it when she finished. Before I had a chance, she loaned it to a teacher (at the end of last school year) and the teacher did not finish it before school was over. So, I had to wait until school started and Liz brought it back. That was a long, long wait.

And it was good but I didn’t like it as much as the Percy Jackson books. TW says that’s because I’d just recently finished the last book in that series, so the characters were all fresh in my mind. That might be true. Or maybe I just don’t like the Egyptian Gods all that much? Or the Godlings either. I think it’s Carter. I just don’t particularly like him very much. And I don’t particularly like Carter and Sadie together. Or maybe I don’t like characters who eat flamingos. I don’t know. We’ll see when I read the next book… spring of 2011. I can wait.

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Life-Size Zoo

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

Life-Size Zoo is a fun children’s non-fiction book. Each animal image is displayed full sized which means kids get a really good idea of just how big a giraffe’s tongue really is. It’s really brilliant. The only problem is that because some animals are so large, they can take up to four full pages to display – which makes refolding the pages of the book difficult. My copy came from the library and the pages were all folded incorrectly. And at one point. I had a tough time figuring out just how the pages were intended to be folded. I mean I could put the pictures of the elephant together properly but to refold them back into the book, in a way that properly displays the animals before and after… well that was tough. This is a book that some kids will be frustrated by, for that very reason. It’s also a book that other children will love figuring out – tearing could be a problem for the frustrated child.

Otherwise – I loved it. And not just because there’s a cute photo of a prairie dog – though there is a cute photo of a prairie dog.

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Two Nancy Drews

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Nancy Drew Challenge /

After reading a string of really depressing books, I mentioned to some folks that I needed to read a book where nobody died, where nobody was raped, where there was no heavy emotional abuse or drama. TW attempted to make suggestions, based on books she had recently read but I had not. Each time she would say “Oh how about…” and I’d say “ nobody dies? No rapes? No…?” and she would say “well… there’s just this one part….” Huh.

Thankfully Sassymonkey is a genius (I say this a lot, don’t I?) and remembered my Nancy Drew Challenge. Duh. Why didn’t I think of that? Nancy Drew did the trick!

The Mystery of the Brass Bound Trunk (which reminded me that I did indeed spend some time wishing I could visit Buenos Ares and longing for a cool trunk to store my crap in) and The Quest of the Missing Map (which I reminded me that I did not like this book because my father had models of ships and built models of ships and I kind of thought it was dumb at the time – so a book with models of ships was also dumb.)

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Cybils Shortlist: Five Children’s Non-Fiction Books

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Don't Read This, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

In no particular order, here’s what I thought of five of the children’s non-fiction books from the Cybils shortlist:

Faith – nice picture book for those who want to introduce young children to a variety of religions and cultures. Beautiful photos of children participating in faith based activities. TW leaned over while I was reading it and said, “Is that a UU book?” – which made me laugh. It would certainly be UU approved.

Down, Down, Down – interesting but a wee bit boring. The pictures were nice enough but considering just how crazy some deep sea creatures really look, it was a bit of a let down.

I think I liked Moonshot more than any of my kids would have. Apollo 11 just doesn’t seem all that interesting to little kids today. It happened too long ago and a world without Velcro is just not something they can comprehend at the age that this book is geared to. And if we want the older child to learn about Apollo 11’s history, then we can do better than this – it’s just too young for the school aged child and too old for a toddler. It’s fun for you if you sit down and look closely at the artwork – and then compare the real photos with the drawings…

14 Cows for America is a super nice, feel good story about 9/11 without really talking about 9/11. I liked it. I liked the art. I liked the softly told story. I liked the feel good message. I just liked it.

Mermaid Queen was my favorite. As much as I have griped about attending synchronized swimming meets with RJ (and then Liz), I do have a fondness for water ballet and I’ve been a big Esther Williams fan all of my life. Annette Kellerman should be better known than she is. I really loved this book. I should buy it – for the girls, of course.

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The Last Olympian

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I finally finished The Last Olympian. That took for freaking ever. Crazy since I really like Percy Jackson and his friends (and family.) Can I just say, I really liked the end? I did! I liked the end of this book and the end of this particular series.  Now onto Riordan’s new series… I’ve heard it’s better than Percy Jackson… I find that hard to believe.

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I’m hyperventilating – for real

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

The beautiful new Glenview Public Library is nearing completion. We will be closed Sunday, September 5 through Friday, October 8 while we move. During this period, neighboring libraries will welcome Glenview Library patrons. Join us for an opening celebration Saturday, October 9, 1-5 pm.

I won’t even be here for the grand opening – I’ll be in San Francisco for BlogHer Food.

Hyper.Ventil.Ating.

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M is for Magic

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, short stories, Young Adult /

How the heck did I miss M is for Magic? I mean I know I’m not the biggest Gaiman fan in the world (I like him but I don’t go crazy or anything) but I do tend to read new releases by “big” children’s fiction and YA fiction authors pretty quickly. Still, I missed it and was glad I happened to see it on the YA shelf the other day. Great short stories. I did indeed laugh out loud several times. And I learned what a “gonk” is, so that was cool, too.  That’s what I like about Gaiman, I always learn something new while being entertained.

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Cybils Children’s Poetry

2 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Poetry /

I knocked out all of the shortlisted poetry books from the Cybils list last night:

African Acrostics
The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry
The Monsterologist
Red Sings from Treetops
The Tree that Time Built

I enjoyed The Monsterologist quite a bit. Quick, amusing, great illustrations. African Acrostics was excellent, a nice way to expose kids to a different kind of poetry. The best thing about the Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry is it’s just another Bill Martin Jr book and they all kind of read the same to me. Red Sings from Treetops almost put me to sleep but I soldiered on to my favorite of the bunch…. The Tree that Time Built.

The Tree that Time Built comes with a CD, which I haven’t listened to yet – but I have high hopes for it. The book itself was more than I expected. Poems from great poets. (Langston Hughes, D.H. Lawrence, Mary Oliver, Christina Rossetti… I could go on, but you get the picture….) A brilliant mix of science, nature and poetry with excellent footnotes that are interesting and don’t feel like something I’d skip over because it’s just boring.

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Cybil’s Children’s Non-Fiction (The Last Two)

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I went on a Cybil’s binge last night. It’s easy when my binge comes from the children’s category. Quick, easy reads that are usually a lot of fun or pretty interesting. Last night, they were more interesting than fun.

The last two books from the Children’s Non-Fiction short list were The Frog Scientist and Marching For Freedom.

The Frog Scientist was interesting but I can’t see any of my kids reading this one for fun – or just because they were interested in frogs. It’s more like a resource for a paper about frogs or environmental issues. And as a resource for such a paper, it’s a great one. The photos are good. The description of the experiment taking place was excellent. Any kid who needs a research topic ought to consider the plight of the frog and the effects of pesticides on frogs. Fascinating, really.  (And way to go Tyrone! A fellow South Carolinian! Nice to see an African American scientist with a really diverse group of research assistants. For that alone, this book ought to be handed to every kid to peruse.)

I wasn’t prepared to really enjoy Marching for Freedom. I’ve read a whole slew of books about African Americans and their fight for the vote, Rosa Parks, MLK, etc…. this one was completely different. OK not completely different but because it really focused on the children and teenagers who played a huge role in the fight for the right to vote, it was a different story. Selma and the march to Montgomery – completely different look when you’re thinking about just how many children CHOSE to march. That’s a story that just hasn’t been told before – and one that we should be telling our kids about. Kids can do great things and make huge contributions – and they should. It’s a scary story – 10 year olds and 12 year olds and 14 year olds being jailed and beaten, but it’s important.  Those kids knew that this was something worth standing up for.  

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Syren

2 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, From the Stacks Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I received a review copy of Syren AGES ago and I put off reading it because I’d fallen behind on the Septimus Heap series and I thought I’d catch up and then read it. (TW and Prince J both read it ages ago and liked it a good bit…) I realized in January that I was never going to catch up with the series but I still wanted to read Syren so I read some reviews and blog posts for the books I’d missed and then started Syren. The first chapter or two left me confused because, duh I’d missed a lot, but by the fifth chapter I was hooked and happily reading. In fact I wanted to read it all of the way through without putting it down.

This really is a terrific middle grade series. In some ways, I like it better than Harry Potter (blasphemy, right?)

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